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This just in: playing golf every week makes you a better golfer.

Nate and I played at Shenandoah Valley Golf Club, in Front Royal, VA today. It’s been rated as one of the ten best public courses in Virginia, and at just $31 for 18 w/cart is a great deal to boot. It’s gorgeous… nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, you’re surrounded by mountain peaks on all sides. Several of the holes boast amazing views of the ridges as you tee off, the grass is immaculate, and the staff is even friendly. Typically Nate and I play at Sleepy Hollow Golf Course in West Virginia, a backwoods, hillbilly golf course. But we got frustrated last week when it cost us $45 to play 2 rounds of golf, considering it’s EXACTLY THE SAME PRICE to play two rounds at Shenandoah Valley.

Today my new driver finally made it out of the driving range and onto the course, where it rewarded me with many 280-290 yard drives and more accuracy than I ever hit my 3-wood with. Actually, I played amazing golf today… until I got onto the green. I ended up shooting an 84, but would have easily shot more like a 75 or 76 if I didn’t putt like a 7-year old girl. I holed out a 25-yard chip (over a bunker) for birdie, knocked it stiff on the par-3 17th (I actually thought it was going in the hole for about 10 seconds), and hit an amazing sand shot to within inches on the 11th. Too bad I probably hit 30 putts over the course of 18 holes… I think it’s actually better for me to purposefully roll just off the edge of the green so I can chip. I’m much better at chipping.

I like golf.

Cindy Sheehan, the blundering leader of Gold Star Families For Peace, resigned yesterday after fighting her so-called hard fought battle for almost two whole years. Often called the “face of the American anti-war movement”, she often managed to rally a few hundred generally annoying people to march with her and promote their hatred of the Iraq War, and more importantly their intolerance of President Bush and the Republican Party as a whole. Sheehan made her big slip-up when she decided that she held influence because of what she believed in, and not because she was a puppet of the Democratic party. As soon as she began to “hold the Democratic Party to the same standards [she] held the Republican Party”, her ‘power’ and ‘influence’ soon found their way to the Democratic dumpster, where she was labeled an “attention whore”. Since she’s now been ousted by the entire American government, she decided yesterday to give up her fight, which lasted a whole two years. In the process, she “sacrificed” her 29-year marriage, estranged her surviving children, went into massive debt from hospital visits whilst spending her money to further her cause, and generally made an ass out of herself to the majority of the people who know who she is. Here’s her blog of resignation: Good Riddance Attention Whore

Normally I don’t get too worked up over disillusioned people like Cindy (except when they protest at funerals… that pisses me off). But her resignation letter sent me off the edge today, so I thought I’d rail on her a little bit. I hope you read her letter, because it should enrage any American as equally as it did me. In just 1200 words, she managed to call America terrorists, murderers, warmongers, cowards, fascists, ungrateful, and liars, to name a few. She spends her entire ‘plea for peace’ trying to paint herself as a martyr, telling all the awful things she’s gone through because her son died in the war, and she tried to rally for peace. She nearly died. She’s penniless. She’s divorced now. Her children don’t love her anymore. She’s a crusader against the masses, championing a cause that no one cares about.

The funny thing to me is this lady personifies everything in the American culture that she’s trying to fight against. She despises the fact that her son was “killed by his own country” for nothing, yet she is leading the movement that declares this war to be for nothing. In her letter she talks about the dire failings of America’s bipartisan government, yet she was and (based on the comments on her blog) remains a major Democratic tool, rallying people not around a common cause but rather a common political party. Nothing about her divisive, politically-driven leadership ever came close to bringing unity or peace to our country, let alone to Iraq. She even went so far as to personally meet with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. At what point did it become the right of American citizens to carry out their own foreign policy? Her actions strike at the very heart of what democracy stands for, and are a battle cry for anarchy and rebellion.

I’m about as frustrated as I can get with our country anymore. The drive-by media is the real fascist here, pumping our citizens full of their anti-war, anti-Bush, Democratic propaganda. They’ve even managed to sway a large majority of republicans to give up on the cause and to lose faith with our current administration. Somehow they’ve made Americans believe that we can support our troops and not support the war, despite the ridiculousness of that statement. And somehow the Democratic party has come out as the good guys in this whole mess, despite the fact they obviously still believe this war is worth something, being that they just signed another huge war funding bill. Maybe they just don’t have the balls to stand up for what they believe in, but somehow I doubt they really believe in much of anything, except maybe gaining power for themselves and their party.

So good riddance to a thorn in America’s side. I’m sure ten more will pop up to take her place, but at least we got rid of one pain in our backside for now. When I think of one line to try and sum up my feelings on the resignation of the attention whore, nothing comes to mind more than a quote from good old Donald Trump:

“I think it’s wonderful because I like to see bad people fail. [She] failed. I’m happy about it.”

A little harsh? I don’t think so.

The Colts have officially put last year’s season behind them, per Peyton Manning during his latest press conference. Mini-camps have started already, and the team is now focused on the 2007 season. So although it’s sad to take down my banner (I spent the better part of four hours making that banner the night they won), I stand with my team as they press on to win the prize, namely Superbowl XLII. So no more Colts banner for now.

In other news, I’d like to retract what I said about Donald Miller’s message. I listened to it again, in the company of my mom and stepdad, and the three of us were together unimpressed. I still like the allegory he made between our lives and stories, and some of the implications it had. For me, being largely a reading/writing person, the story connection was a new and unique way of looking at our spiritual walk. But overall the message was very toned with post-modernism, specifically with a heavy dose of self interest. As I listened again, I became aware of just how much the message revolved around our decisions as humans, and how little it involved God leading our decisions. It was one of those messages that we as humans like to hear, because it’s easier for us to decide what we want to do than it is to let God decide. Richard was quick to point this flawed theology out after we were done listening to the message, and he was right to do so. Unfortunately, it’s the overall tone of the emerging church movement, and while I see a lot of benefits within the movement, many of its leaders scare me… a lot. Brian McLaren–yikes.

We’re heading into the last day of Fusion Conference at the church. I’ve only been working the main events, so I didn’t get a chance to sit in on any of the seminars, but the speakers have been great so far. Donald Miller, Dan Kimball and others. Donald Miller really challenged me tonight in what may be the best message I’ve ever heard. It’s funny, because he’s not the captivating, uber-communicator type that you might expect when I say ‘best message I’ve ever heard.’  But he just relates things in ways that make a lot of sense to me. And judging on how well his book (Blue Like Jazz) sold, apparently a lot of people my age.

I have the recording and I want to listen to it again before I post more thoughts, mainly because they’re all very disorganized at 3am. But there are some good thoughts swirling around in my head.

Oh, Don Miller is pretty funny, too. He claimed to stop wearing deodorant in favor of anti-bacterial hand gel. In the context of the conversation, it was really funny.

I drove over to the western Chesapeake Shore today for my second shoot on the bay. This time it was about 50 degrees warmer than last time, I have an exponentially better camera, I found a great place to shoot, and God provided some tremendous light to shoot in. I have a ton of pics I really like, so when I say I’ve got 12 for you today, understand that’s narrowed down from a field of 40 or 50 candidates. Maybe someday I’ll get a flickr account or some other online photo album, but for now I’m content just to show them off here. You can feel free to click on them, I remembered to upload two different sizes today, so each picture is about 1.2mb for the ‘medium’ size. I already have one as a wallpaper and another couple waiting on standby, and if you want to use any of them as a wallpaper feel free. If you email me and ask, I’ll even crop it for widescreen or standard width.